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This past Saturday’s Welles Remy Crowther Red Bandanna 5K was a memorable one in more than a few ways, especially given that it was the event’s 10th anniversary.
On an archetypal New England autumn morning, thousands of runners and walkers flocked to the Boston College campus for the 5K, a tribute to the memory of the 1999 alumnus, investment trader and volunteer firefighter celebrated for his heroism during the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center.
Among the participants was Welles McDevitt, born the same year as the 5K, and – for the first time – running the course on his own two feet. The oldest of 1997 alumni Colin and Tracey (Lapan) McDevitt’s four children, Welles is named for Crowther, who graduated two years behind the McDevitts.
“My Welles left us in the dust,” laughed Tracey, who accompanied Welles and his eight-year-old brother Greer from their home in Texas (the family moved there from New Hampshire two years ago) to Boston for the 5K. “The three of us started out together, but in a short while he was well ahead.
“It was just a beautiful day, and so exciting to see that many runners show up. The group was definitely smaller when we first started going, back when we lived in the area – we would push Welles in a stroller then. This was an important, and very worthwhile, visit.”
The McDevitts, who also hold MBAs from the Carroll School of Management, never knew Welles’ namesake personally, but the common threads in their lives – of the same generation, educated at BC – and the story of Crowther’s sacrifice resonated deeply with Colin and Tracey. While they felt that naming their son after Crowther would be an affirmation of strongly held values and ideals, they have sought to impart the lessons of Crowther’s life to Welles carefully and deliberately, allowing him to form his own impressions.
Participating in this year’s Red Bandanna 5K, according to Tracey, represented another milestone for Welles, who is exhibiting that flowering of independence and maturity common to late childhood.
“He likes hearing about who Welles was the other days of his life, besides on 9/11,” she explained. “He knows that Welles had siblings, just like he has siblings, and that Welles fought with them sometimes, just like he does – but that’s just how things are in families and it doesn’t mean you don’t love each other.
“Our Welles is using the full story of Welles Crowther, not just the 9/11 part, to navigate his own life. It helps him to understand how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”
When the McDevitts knew their first child was on the way, they – like countless parents down through the ages – thought about the right name. Knowing they were to have a son, according to Tracey, the name “Welles” appealed to them for many reasons.
“We hoped giving him that name would give him a special guardian angel; that he would be reminded of what his role in this world is, and how each and every day he should strive to do good for others,” she explained. “We wanted him to be reminded of a young man who didn’t get to see all of his hopes and dreams come true and we hoped that our son would appreciate every single day he had on this earth and live each day to the fullest. We hoped he’d understand what a special honor it is to be named after a hero and hoped he’d take that responsibility seriously.
“For me, personally, I hoped to give love, healing, and hope for the future to another mother who suffered the unthinkable – the death of a child. I wanted her to know that there was another Welles in this world, and hopefully he’d carry on some of the spirit and legacy of her Welles for the years to come.”
But before the McDevitts made the decision, they reached out to the Crowther family to make sure it was all right.
“Alison [Crowther’s mother] said she was thrilled and honored. She and Jefferson [her husband] met our Welles when he was a baby, and we give them a huge hug just about every year, at the 5K.”
It was during a much earlier Red Bandanna 5K when Welles McDevitt heard for the first time that someone had the same first name as him. But Tracey and Colin took things slowly: Yes, they told him, there was another Welles, and many people feel he was very special – enough to have his name included in the Memorial Labyrinth on Burns Library Lawn; that other Welles was special, they said, because he cared about people and always tried to help them.
As their Welles grew older, they gradually supplied other details, including the fact that Welles Crowther had died a hero, in one of the most horrific events in American history. But these pointed to other, more complicated aspects of the story, and raised questions for which there were no easy answers.
“When he was eight or nine, he asked if there had been any kids in the airplanes that crashed,” said Tracey. “That made it all the more real for him, because we fly a lot. We told him that good and evil exist in this world; we make a choice to be kind, loving people, but evil should not deter us from being good.
“Fortunately, years ago, Alison had written a long letter to him about her son, focusing on the type of child her Welles was – a good brother, a good student, a good leader and so on. Welles has read the letter several times the past few years.
“This year, he began to grasp everything. ”
The beginning of this school year saw an epiphany, Tracey said: When his teacher asked each child in class to tell something about himself or herself, Welles said, “I’m named after a hero.” When she realized who Welles’ namesake was, the teacher organized a class project about 9/11 and Welles Crowther, and teachers and students throughout the school wore red bandannas.
“I was amazed to hear that, because Welles had never told anyone before. He’s a sensitive and kind boy who would never try to draw attention to himself. But he felt this was something important for his class to know about.”
This year’s Red Bandanna event resulted in yet another discovery for the fifth-grader: that one of Alison and Jefferson Crowther’s grandchildren shares not only his age but also his name.
“They’d been around each other as little kids years ago but hadn’t really met until Saturday,” said Tracey. “So they were saying, ‘Your name is Welles, too?’ It’s the world opening up just a little bit more for him.”
For more information about the Welles Remy Crowther Red Bandanna 5K, see www.bc.edu/redbandannarun.